We are in receipt of your letter of July 20, 2009. As you know the only trustee for the America’s Cup Deed of Gift is Société Nautique de Genève (SNG). We are not a fiduciary as a Challenger, despite your claims to the contrary. Please address any complaints that you have regarding fiduciary duties under the America’s Cup Deed of Gift to SNG, the Trustee.

We know of no “pre-requisites” or “conditions” to which you refer in paragraph 6 of your letter. You should not assume that we share any opinions with you regarding that.

Our consistent position on your request has been set forth in our prior letter to you of May 26, 2009. To make it perfectly clear, our position is that we are not willing to hold an elimination series unless SNG agrees to a mutually consent protocol and all parties, including the Defender, are subject to the same rules. SNG is unwilling to do that, and without mutual consent we cannot go further with this.

As you would know from its press reports, SNG has declined to engage in a mutual consent process with us, and rather continues to assert that it has the right to promulgate rules for the upcoming event. Therefore, any actions which you decide to take in preparing for an event will continue to be at your own risk.

We are in receipt of your letter of July 20, 2009. As you know the only trustee for the America’s Cup Deed of Gift is Société Nautique de Genève (SNG). We are not a fiduciary as a Challenger, despite your claims to the contrary. Please address any complaints that you have regarding fiduciary duties under the America’s Cup Deed of Gift to SNG, the Trustee.

We know of no “pre-requisites” or “conditions” to which you refer in paragraph 6 of your letter. You should not assume that we share any opinions with you regarding that.

Our consistent position on your request has been set forth in our prior letter to you of May 26, 2009. To make it perfectly clear, our position is that we are not willing to hold an elimination series unless SNG agrees to a mutually consent protocol and all parties, including the Defender, are subject to the same rules. SNG is unwilling to do that, and without mutual consent we cannot go further with this.

As you would know from its press reports, SNG has declined to engage in a mutual consent process with us, and rather continues to assert that it has the right to promulgate rules for the upcoming event. Therefore, any actions which you decide to take in preparing for an event will continue to be at your own risk.

We understand that GGYC has again requested the Court to address the issue of Alinghi’s compliance to the rules of the Deed of Gift.

Although we do regret that the America’s Cup future seems to be once again dependent on a legal dispute, we remain confident that, in your fiduciary role as the Challenge of Record, you will commit to go back in the water to return the America’s Cup to its original intent.

You have actually greatly contributed as a Challenger of Record to the 32nd Americas’ Cup to as to make that event the milestone in the history of the competition and you have subsequently consistently committed the GGYC to be open to a multi challenge event.In the light of the above we wish once again to bring your attention to our request to take part to a Challengers’ Selection Series in relation to 33rd America’s Cup, as we have already indicated in our letters of May 22 and May 27, 2009.

All the conditions and pre-requisites which you have indicated, have now actually been duly filled and occurred, and from the lack of your reply, we can only reasonably assume that you share this opinion.

We do therefore expect you to follow up with your previous statements in favour of a multi challenge event (statements that have also been repeated in Court at the hearing of May 14, 2009) and proceed accordingly without any further delay.

As I am sure, you will appreciate we have already been uselessly waiting for more than two months to engage in a formal discussion with you and we have even made ourselves available to travel to the Bay area to meet you at your convenience.

The present standstill has already created a status of uncertainty and the more time elapses without action on your side, the more difficult it will make it for us to build up a truly competitive challenge.

Therefore we wish formally to request you once again to meet without further delay and to start working on a Challengers’ Selection Series project. On this regard we wish to let you know that Francesco De Leo, Executive Chairman of Green Comm Challenge, will be in the West Coast from July 26th through August 27th.

As a matter of fact, we expect that on July 21, when attending the Court hearing, you will be addressing this issue as well, while sorting out your position vis-à-vis Société Nautique de Genève (to whom we are sending copy of this letter for their information).

We understand that GGYC has again requested the Court to address the issue of Alinghi’s compliance to the rules of the Deed of Gift.

Although we do regret that the America’s Cup future seems to be once again dependent on a legal dispute, we remain confident that, in your fiduciary role as the Challenge of Record, you will commit to go back in the water to return the America’s Cup to its original intent.

You have actually greatly contributed as a Challenger of Record to the 32nd Americas’ Cup to as to make that event the milestone in the history of the competition and you have subsequently consistently committed the GGYC to be open to a multi challenge event.In the light of the above we wish once again to bring your attention to our request to take part to a Challengers’ Selection Series in relation to 33rd America’s Cup, as we have already indicated in our letters of May 22 and May 27, 2009.

All the conditions and pre-requisites which you have indicated, have now actually been duly filled and occurred, and from the lack of your reply, we can only reasonably assume that you share this opinion.

We do therefore expect you to follow up with your previous statements in favour of a multi challenge event (statements that have also been repeated in Court at the hearing of May 14, 2009) and proceed accordingly without any further delay.

As I am sure, you will appreciate we have already been uselessly waiting for more than two months to engage in a formal discussion with you and we have even made ourselves available to travel to the Bay area to meet you at your convenience.

The present standstill has already created a status of uncertainty and the more time elapses without action on your side, the more difficult it will make it for us to build up a truly competitive challenge.

Therefore we wish formally to request you once again to meet without further delay and to start working on a Challengers’ Selection Series project. On this regard we wish to let you know that Francesco De Leo, Executive Chairman of Green Comm Challenge, will be in the West Coast from July 26th through August 27th.

As a matter of fact, we expect that on July 21, when attending the Court hearing, you will be addressing this issue as well, while sorting out your position vis-à-vis Société Nautique de Genève (to whom we are sending copy of this letter for their information).

We have duly noted its content and the reasons which, in your opinion, do not allow a multiple challenger event to take place, namely, the purported lack of the Defender’s interest and your worries about further delays.

For the sake of clarity let us first state that we never claimed that you have “an obligation” to consider other challengers under the Deed of Gift.

Actually we only stated that, in your capacity as the Challenger of Record, it is within the fiduciary duties of your role to address the issue of how to organize the Challengers’ selection and that we would therefore expect you to protect our interests by doing so.

As to the merits, it would be improper for us to discuss the grounds of your litigation with SNG which has not involved our Yacht Club.

We are however very pleased to acknowledge that the issue of the Defender’s interest and consent to a multiple challenger Cup in multi-hulls, which you have qualified in your letter, as being a “prerequisite for having multiple challengers” has, beyond any doubt, now been successfully overcome.

In fact in its letter of May 26 addressed to the Golden Gate Yacht Club, SNG actually indicates that: “SNG continues to urge you to allow other interested challengers to compete in a challenger selection series prior to the Match which at this stage will be held under the terms of the Deed… if for your own competitive reasons, you wish to maintain the present match schedule, the challenger series can be held beforehand. SNG remains happy to continue with the present scheduled date of the Match. SNG has been advised by several interested challengers they will be ready to compete in a challenger series with the Match as presently scheduled”.

Moreover, in its letter of May 26 addressed to our Yacht Club, SNG plainly represents that: ” SNG is continuing to encourage GGYC to accept SNG’s offer to give you and any ohter interested challenger, the opportunity to compete in the 33 America’s Cup”.

The above is quite self explanatory, and we believe it fully satisfies the prerequisite argument which you have correctly raised.

As to the second issue you raised, it is quite clear from our previous correspondence that we were and still are perfectly happy to meet the February deadline so as to keep the present match schedule you have set for the challenge with the Defender. It would actually be improper for us to seek to delay this match which, according to your own words “should have taken place in July 2008″.

Challengers series can indeed be held beforehand at your convenience.

We assume and trust that all of the above removes the conditions, the prerequisite, the objections and the worries you raised in your letter and that, consistently with your previous attitude, you would now be prepared to discuss the organization of the multiple challenger event without further delay.

We have duly noted its content and the reasons which, in your opinion, do not allow a multiple challenger event to take place, namely, the purported lack of the Defender’s interest and your worries about further delays.

For the sake of clarity let us first state that we never claimed that you have “an obligation” to consider other challengers under the Deed of Gift.

Actually we only stated that, in your capacity as the Challenger of Record, it is within the fiduciary duties of your role to address the issue of how to organize the Challengers’ selection and that we would therefore expect you to protect our interests by doing so.

As to the merits, it would be improper for us to discuss the grounds of your litigation with SNG which has not involved our Yacht Club.

We are however very pleased to acknowledge that the issue of the Defender’s interest and consent to a multiple challenger Cup in multi-hulls, which you have qualified in your letter, as being a “prerequisite for having multiple challengers” has, beyond any doubt, now been successfully overcome.

In fact in its letter of May 26 addressed to the Golden Gate Yacht Club, SNG actually indicates that: “SNG continues to urge you to allow other interested challengers to compete in a challenger selection series prior to the Match which at this stage will be held under the terms of the Deed… if for your own competitive reasons, you wish to maintain the present match schedule, the challenger series can be held beforehand. SNG remains happy to continue with the present scheduled date of the Match. SNG has been advised by several interested challengers they will be ready to compete in a challenger series with the Match as presently scheduled”.

Moreover, in its letter of May 26 addressed to our Yacht Club, SNG plainly represents that: ” SNG is continuing to encourage GGYC to accept SNG’s offer to give you and any ohter interested challenger, the opportunity to compete in the 33 America’s Cup”.

The above is quite self explanatory, and we believe it fully satisfies the prerequisite argument which you have correctly raised.

As to the second issue you raised, it is quite clear from our previous correspondence that we were and still are perfectly happy to meet the February deadline so as to keep the present match schedule you have set for the challenge with the Defender. It would actually be improper for us to seek to delay this match which, according to your own words “should have taken place in July 2008″.

Challengers series can indeed be held beforehand at your convenience.

We assume and trust that all of the above removes the conditions, the prerequisite, the objections and the worries you raised in your letter and that, consistently with your previous attitude, you would now be prepared to discuss the organization of the multiple challenger event without further delay.

On this regard we are prepared to meet at your earliest convenience.

We look forward to hearing from you

Sincerely

Lorenzo RizzardiPresidentCircolo Vela Gargnano

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Valencia Sailing will meet with Francesco de Leo, CEO of Green Comm Challenge, in Valencia on Tuesday. Green Comm represents the Circolo di Vela Gargano and presented a challenge for the 33rd America’s Cup.

Similar to what we did with the BMW Oracle press conference, if you have any questions you would like to have answered by Mr de Leo, just leave a comment.

Share this:

Valencia Sailing will meet with Francesco de Leo, CEO of Green Comm Challenge, in Valencia on Tuesday. Green Comm represents the Circolo di Vela Gargano and presented a challenge for the 33rd America’s Cup.

Similar to what we did with the BMW Oracle press conference, if you have any questions you would like to have answered by Mr de Leo, just leave a comment.